


my end and my beginning

by Feather (lalaietha)



Series: (even if i could) make a deal with god [your blue-eyed boys related short-fic] [65]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Bucky has a warped sense of humour, Bucky has issues, Communication, Disabled Character, Guilt, M/M, Marking, Mentally Ill Character, Pierce died too quick, Possessive Steve Rogers, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Protective Steve Rogers, Steve Has Issues, Steve has a lot of FEELINGS, Unrepentant Adoration, banter and snark, slightly desperate affirmation sex, the weird habits of cats
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-08
Updated: 2014-12-08
Packaged: 2018-02-28 16:41:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,834
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2739575
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lalaietha/pseuds/Feather
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bruce is the one who actually tells him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	my end and my beginning

**Author's Note:**

  * For [celeloriel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/celeloriel/gifts), [adsartha](https://archiveofourown.org/users/adsartha/gifts), [thatyourefuse](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thatyourefuse/gifts).



> This fic is part of [**this series**](http://archiveofourown.org/series/132585), which is for short-fic associated with my fic [**your blue-eyed boys**](http://archiveofourown.org/series/107477), because I needed somewhere to stash it. 
> 
> Gifted to these three users on the basis that they handheld me through being a neurotic ridiculous mess. 
> 
> Anyone wondering what resemblance is referred to may wish to compare [this](https://33.media.tumblr.com/8c3e3e79e56673c2a187d96701c733d4/tumblr_na9htx94XO1tya76io1_r1_250.gif) to [this](https://31.media.tumblr.com/cb37d82975cd215deead9792cc1f3bdb/tumblr_inline_n9r9xxT17y1rzfstp.jpg).

Bruce is the one who actually tells him. 

Steve's at the Tower in the first place because Tony's gotten the idea in his head that he's going to turn the big main gym on the seventeenth floor into an "endlessly rearrangeable and customizable training and body-optimization environment", which Steve translates pretty quickly as, "a gigantic jungle-gym for grownups". That doesn't make it a bad idea, granted, it's just that Tony likes dressing things up in technical jargon to make sure people don't look too closely at what he's actually doing, and Steve refuses to fall for that. So he needles Tony a bit about not playing outside enough as a kid, and otherwise actually does what he's there to do, which is to spit-ball ideas of what he'd like to see in that kind of environment, and what he could use. 

Thor and Clint do more or less the same thing; Natasha's apparently somewhere in the labs with Betty, doing motion capture studies for something Steve didn't quite catch and honestly wasn't interested enough in to ask about. "Nat kind of has the natural's problem for this kind of thing anyway," Clint says, chair turned around and arms folded across the back. At Thor and Steve's looks of query, he elaborates, "Sometimes the last person you want to have trying to teach you is the best in the field. Everything's so obvious to them, they can't figure out how it's _not_ obvious to you, which is why he - " and Clint jabs a finger in Tony's direction, "- is probably the worst fucking math teacher on the planet." 

"Second," Tony says, holding up two fingers but not looking up from the screen where he's taking notes. "If I have truly decided to try to teach someone instead of just making them feel bad about themselves, I'm actually very patient, which makes me the _second_ worst math teacher on the planet." 

The 3-D holographic model of what amounts to their wish-list grows, constructing itself on the table surface as Tony inputs their suggestions, taking itself apart when something turns out not to work, or they decide it was a bad idea. They keep going until a woman with short, dark hair, medium brown skin and startlingly big eyes steps in to inform Tony that he has a meeting in twenty minutes and she's been asked by Pepper to stand here and repeat that ad nauseam until Tony actually gets up from the table and goes to put grownup clothes on. 

She says all of it in an extremely calm, pleasant and professional voice, so if you're not paying attention you'd almost miss what she actually _says_ ; Tony scowls and says, "I am in grownup clothes, I am a grownup - " 

"Debatable," Steve murmurs, and Clint covers a grin with one hand. 

" - these are my clothes, QED," Tony goes on, ignoring him, "but fine." He looks up and adds, "Right, you three, Janine, my - " he looks like he's going to say one thing and then changes his mind and goes for, "- personal assistant," instead, "and Janine, Captain America, Hawkeye, Thor, I'm . . . actually surprised you didn't know them already," he adds, frowning and glancing around again, "that's weird, whatever, I'm apparently supposed to go get ready for a meeting, don't have fun without me." 

After the door closes Clint says, thoughtfully, "Sometimes I actually don't think he knows what he's going to say until it comes out of his mouth." 

Thor gives him a sidelong look. "Only sometimes?" 

"No," Steve says, getting up, "sometimes he absolutely does it on purpose." 

"With malice aforethought, even," Clint agrees. 

 

They split up from there, Thor veering towards the elevator and J-block's labs, currently colonized by Jane and Selvig's project, which Steve _really_ doesn't understand but is considering trying to get Jane to explain to him at some point, and Clint announcing his solemn intent to sleep off the rest of the jet-lag, and in the end Steve deciding to stop by the Tower library before he goes back home. 

The Tower's library does actually have physical books, ones that are either impossible to scan and adapt to the screen for one reason or another (too large, Braille, art pieces where the physical texture and shape of the page matters too much, that sort of thing) or are kids' books, in all their endless shapes, sizes, colours and pop-outs. There's a daycare somewhere in the building, Steve gathers. He hasn't come across it yet, but he has occasionally encountered rows of small children, all holding onto a long rope and each other's hands, with little green smocks on over their clothes, going from one place to another within the building. They seem pretty happy, and the library is one of the places he's seen them most, scattered around the brightly coloured kids' reading area and its cushions and little tables. 

The rest of the library is made up of ebooks, accessible either on your own tablet or phone, or on one of the in-library e-readers the librarians - and there are still librarians - hand out. 

But mostly, it _feels_ like a library, with the same hush that doesn't come from the absence of people, but from dozens of people sharing a space and saying as little as they can, moving as quietly as possible. Today there aren't that many, and Steve takes the opportunity to bother one of the librarians for recommendations in Russian and, because he's out of practice, French. Then, with about a half dozen of those loaded up, he swings by the cafe on the second floor mezzanine. 

Which is where Bruce finds him. 

Steve never really sees Bruce without thinking that it's telling the way a man with more grey in his hair can still look younger and less burdened than he did when Steve first met him, but today the effect is slightly spoiled by how Bruce is frowning just a bit like someone with something unhappy on their mind. And Steve's also a little surprised when Bruce makes his way straight towards him and then stops, looking his own version of hesitant, beside the table. 

"Join me?" Steve says after a beat, gesturing to the other chair, and Bruce does sit down. 

Bruce Banner has an expressive face, expressive body-language really, and right now mostly what they're both expressing is apprehension and regret, enough that Steve asks, "Is something wrong?" before Bruce even gets himself completely settled. Bruce grimaces, slightly. 

"Depends on how you look at it," he says, slightly cryptic and then goes right onto, "How's your day?" He takes a mini-tablet out of his inside pocket, and taps the edge on the back of his hand. Steve gives him a quizzical look and shrugs. 

"Not bad," he says. Bruce gives him a long, appraising look. 

"Just 'not bad'?" he asks, and then sighs. "I ask," he says, "because I'm about to ruin it, and I should probably figure out how bad I need to feel." 

Now Steve's just outright baffled, leans his forearms on the table and says, "I'm not following you at all, Bruce." 

"I know," Bruce says. He takes a breath, wakes the mini-tablet up with a swipe and says, "You know we're still hip-deep wading through the SHIELD-HYDRA files," and Steve feels the back of his neck prickle. "Betty and I," Bruce goes on, "were sorting through some JARVIS had identified as potentially having data on gamma radiation experiments, and among other stuff in the hidden files, some of it horrific, we found these." 

He slides the mini-tablet across the table to Steve, and Steve picks it up, giving Bruce a puzzled frown. Bruce just gestures to it and rubs his forehead, waiting, as Steve looks at the screen. 

There are three photos, all of them black and white, none of them actually _of_ the people, the person in them. They're _of_ what actually look to Steve like corpses, dead bodies seemingly photographed where they fell, two of them beside thin plywood walls that look . . . almost like a mockup, like a model of a house. Either corpses, or the most morbid set of realistic mannequins Steve's ever seen. One of them is of a woman, or at least of a body that had been a woman when she'd still had her head. But that's . . . not the important part. 

Because they photos aren't _of_ the living men in the background, or sometimes in the foreground, but they show them. And one of them in one of the photos is Zola, hands folded behind his back, frowning down at the corpse at his feet like he's listening to the man beside him, and he looks . . . pretty much as Steve remembers him. 

The part that matters is the man standing beside him, a good bit taller than he is, and younger - both younger than Zola and when Steve actually met him. Probably taller, too, given what age does to human bodies. Alexander Pierce's features had coarsened a lot with age, changing the lines and making the shape of his face look different, but he's still recognizable. Which is the point, really. 

Steve thinks he probably has even a better idea of what he himself actually _looks_ like than most people do, between watching himself on film and the fact that, when your entire skeletal structure changes between a morning and an afternoon, you spend some time looking in a mirror not just for the ordinary purposes of checking to make sure your hair looks neat or you haven't missed a spot shaving, but to make sure you learn to recognize that face in the mirror and don't keep looking for the one you used to have. So you don't keep startling yourself every time you walk past a reflective surface - which Steve had done, a lot, in the first week or so. 

You learn to see what other people see, to know what a photograph would look like, to picture what the camera sees. You see yourself as a stranger first, all brand new and unfamiliar, instead of watching the same face take shape over years until you pick at features nobody else notices and forget how the whole fits together. 

So it doesn't take him any time at all to look down at those photos and recognize that by appearance, at least, he and a young Alexander Pierce could damn well be brothers, and brothers who looked uncannily alike at that. And it doesn't take him very long to think about what that might mean, either. 

It shows in his face, he knows, because Bruce has been watching him and sighs again, looks away. Says, "Yeah. The, ah, photo-set is more extensive. Mostly bodies. If I were to hazard a guess, I'd say - " 

"Training run aftermath," Steve says, short and abrupt, the first word tasting bitter in his mouth. He can see it in the way the bodies lie, now, and he pushes the tablet back to Bruce because he doesn't want to see it anymore. Bruce takes it back and switches off the screen, sliding it back into his pocket. 

"Didn't figure it needed that much more illustration, anyway," Bruce says, and now the agitated apprehension is gone and it's just the regret and, Steve thinks, just . . . sadness. "Sorry," he says. "Like I said: ruins your day. But we figured you'd want to know." 

Steve knows he's upset. Knows he's angry, even, livid, it's just still far away because he's sitting in the middle of a cafe with people all around and he's recognizable and even if nobody's close enough to hear (let alone understand) what's going on, this still isn't the place. So instead of emotion there's just a tightness in his chest, crawling upwards, so that he has to clear his throat before he can say, "And you were right. Thank you." 

The look Bruce gives him is knowing and a sort of kind that stops just short of intolerable mostly because Steve's well aware how much of that _knowing_ is, well. If anyone knows what it's like to have to be _careful_ about anger for the sake of someone else, it's Bruce, and they both know it. Steve clears his throat again and finds that he's already pushed himself away from the table, stood up, abandoning the mocha where it is because of the way his stomach's twisting up worse with every second. "I'm just - " he starts, but Bruce is shaking his head. 

"Yeah, don't worry about it," he says, quietly and then, "Steve?" 

When Steve stops, Bruce says, "Don't beat yourself up for stuff that isn't your fault." 

Steve doesn't have an answer for that he wants to say in public, so he acknowledges it with a short nod before he leaves. 

 

He's back in the Tower within ten minutes, hitting the elevator to find his floor, because he's not fit to go home and he probably shouldn't be out around a lot of people, which pretty much writes off anything within twelve blocks. And he's sure as Hell not in the mood to talk to anyone, which is why he's not in the _slightest bit_ surprised that by the time he's poured himself a glass of water in the kitchen, there's a text on his phone from Natasha and it reads, _you know this isn't your fault either, Steve._

If there were any point he might consider telling her this isn't the time, but that kind of thing feels strangely dishonest and disingenuous with Natasha: she knows exactly what kind of time it is, and if that were going to deter her she wouldn't've said anything in the first place. When she does this kind of thing, she does it on purpose. 

Instead he replies, _banner told you_ and then tosses the phone on the counter and leaves it there while he goes to the bedroom and digs out the sweats he keeps here, and one of the t-shirts, in the futile hope he can burn some of the anger off. 

He can't, he already knows he can't, but he'll try anyway. 

_of course bruce told me_ , Natasha's text replies. _he's smart enough to know I'm probably the only person who can even *guess* how fucking awful you feel right now *and* the only person who can say a single fucking thing you'll listen to, even if you get mad at me for saying it._

And it's things like this that can make her difficult to take, sometimes, and it's things like this that the deepest, most honest part of him knows makes her good for him, and he still kind of wants to throw the phone at the wall hard enough to shatter one or dent the other. 

Natasha doesn't wait for a reply, probably knows he doesn't have one, just says, _you didn't do it, it's not your fault, and it was and is out of your control._

_I know that,_ he sends and takes a second to be irritated at how fast she can type on tiny touch-screens, too, because there's almost no pause before she replies, _but you don't believe it._

Steve puts the phone down so that he _doesn't_ throw it, makes himself take a deep breath, and then says, _Natasha, I cannot talk about this with you right now_ , and it's true. At least, not if he doesn't want to break this. 

_I know,_ she says, which would beg the question why she bothered to try if it weren't followed almost immediately with, _but he'd tell you exactly the same thing, Steve, and you know it._

Steve turns off the screen and then turns off the ringer. 

 

He isn't _good_ at this kind of anger. He never used to have it. Oh, he got mad about stuff. Lots of stuff. Got mad, shot his mouth off, punched someone . . . and then there was the grinding underlying frustration and indignation at the world's injustices and also at his own body that kept failing him - anger, in general, the kind that makes people stand up for themselves and for others, the kind that makes them kick over the tables in the Temple, Steve'd thought that was what anger was, and that he'd understood it fine. 

He'd been wrong. Turns out there was always this whole other world of rage he'd never touched before, and he's not very good at dealing with now. Hasn't been. 

He's not actually stupid. He's not actually blind. He can look back and know that the kid who told Erskine he didn't actually want to kill anyone wouldn't recognize the person who sat in the remains of a bombed-out London pub and told Peggy he wouldn't stop till they were all dead - "or captured", added mostly as a sop, because he'd known at the time nearly every last HYDRA soldier would die fighting. 

(And he'd been right. Schmidt had been good at that, at least. He'd skimmed them off the top, the fanatics, the desperate, the martyrs. The ones that would open up their souls and let him pour all his poison in.) 

The kid who tried just _one more time_ to enlist wouldn't recognize the soldier in the pub, and from the present, Steve mostly wants to go back to his grieving self that day and say, _that's not going to help. It's not going to make it better._

Not that he'd've listened. 

It hasn't even escaped him that riding shotgun in Sam's car, he'd been trying to figure out how to clean out the rot and leave the bones of SHIELD standing, and then a few hours later he was demanding, _commanding_ that the whole thing burn. He stands by that, by the decision and the reasons but he's not going to pretend he doesn't know God-damn well what the catalyst was, or what felt like it was already burning _him_ alive. 

Still does, sometimes. 

And maybe, Steve thinks, that explains everything, every stupid war, every blood-feud, every horrible everything that people do: get people this kind of mad and have the targets of that anger still be alive, accessible - or at least convince them they are, even if you have to lie or twist them up until that anger's pointed in the wrong direction. Then you have a firestorm. Then you have a lot of evil. It's different and it's awful in the oldest sense of the word, and sometimes Steve hates that Alexander Pierce is that far out of his reach, and then _sometimes_ he's pretty God-damned grateful that's so. 

Because he doesn't know what he'd do. But he does know it wouldn't actually help. Would probably change him for the worse or even the worst. And he'd still do it anyway. 

For a while the anger tended to turn itself back on him. Doesn't so much anymore. He had a lot of _you should have_ s, but Bucky's undercut most of them one way or another. Maybe either of those younger versions of himself he thinks about from time to time would get mad or disappointed at _that_ , mad at himself for letting Bucky let him off the hook, but . . . 

It's hard to keep insisting to yourself you should have done this or that when the person who sleeps beside you has all kinds of nightmares about what _he_ , at least, is dead certain would have happened if you had. When you've ended up knowing the difference between the bad wake-up moments where you need to tell someone else _no, you're okay_ , and then the other times where it's _no,_ I'm _okay_ that's the important part, the part that's going to put reality back where it should be. 

And maybe who he really needs to talk this out with is a priest, but now would be a bad time to start spinning through trial after trial to find one that doesn't need a sharp cuff upside the head and an introduction to the real hard edges of life. The sacraments might be true no matter how badly the priest is flawed, but those aren't what Steve needs: some kind of wisdom _is_ , and that tends to be in universally short supply. 

He's angry enough as it is. Stuck with this anger he never knew before Bucky fell, never had to know, and on reflection at least some of that part's probably Bucky's doing, too. And there's no such thing as repayment and there's no such thing as balance, because what's happened stays happened, so he's stuck there, too.

Practice targets don't help that much, and don't last very long, not even the ones Tony's adjusted. Steve savages a bunch of them anyway (because never let it be said he doesn't hit futility head on) and doesn't give up, shower, change and go home until the need to _be_ home overwhelms the fear of going home angry this way. 

 

Bucky's in the shower when Steve gets in, which is probably a good thing. The condo hits Steve in the face with calm, with normality and ordinariness and mundanity, complete with a baby cat who's managed to get up on the counter again and then get stuck because she goes to the edge and hesitates for ages (sometimes hours, or at least it feels like hours) about making the leap she can't see to the floor below her. 

He scoops her up and crouches to let her down; when her feet hit the floor she scampers off after a little plastic ball with a bell in it. He pours himself coffee like the talisman it is. Because when it comes down to it Peggy and Monty probably didn't like their tea, really, the same way Steve doesn't _really_ like this coffee. Not actually _like_. Not for itself. But it's like a kid's teddy-bear or blanket, like touching a saint's medallion or a cross or whatever meant the same kind of thing to you before you went and did something stupid and dangerous. It's not about itself, it's about what it _means_. 

There's a philosophy treatise in there somewhere, but it's probably already been written. 

For a while Steve sits on the couch. He watches the little orange goof tumble all over herself, get distracted by her tail, scamper around exactly like a baby who hasn't had a dangerous moment in her life at the very least since LeAnn Maligaya scooped her and her litter-mates out of the alley. And while he watches he tries to figure out how to deal with the anger, and with the regret that isn't about guilt, is just honest-to-God _regret_ , the wish that something never happened, and then yeah, at the end of it: something that _wants_ to be guilt, but can't figure out how. 

Something that looks at the endless list of _I'm sorry_ s and adds, _I'm sorry I was your weakness, sorry I was the Achilles' heel._ Which on top of everything else is probably arrogant enough to be out of line, because it assumes a lot. _A lot._

It's just that it assumes it knowing that while everyone else kept their hands on their guns and hoped not to die for the bad luck of being in arms' reach at just the wrong moment, even if they weren't actually doing anything at all, Alexander Pierce felt safe enough to hit Bucky with his own hands, and never worry what might happen. Other men tortured, other men _trained_ (and Steve's mind always spits that word) and yet only Pierce thought he could do that. 

So it's arrogant as Hell, and then there's . . . that. Inescapable, suggestive, and sickening. 

And this isn't helping him not be angry. At all. 

Steve puts his cup down on the side-table, gets up and walks to the mantelpiece to no particular purpose, except the one he doesn't really think about until his fingers touch the wood body of the slightly mangled pocket-knife that lives there, still (always) in its little ornamental dish. Another kind of talisman. One that's a little more obvious. 

He got the knife by sheer luck. Because Bucky hadn't had it on him when he fell, because Steve spent part of those two years between New York and DC combing over archives and bits of property, relics of SHIELD's past all tidied away in the archives and - because they didn't have anything to do with actual missions - mostly ignored. Now, of course, mostly destroyed. 

Steve hadn't bothered to tell anyone he'd taken it. Nick Fury probably knew, but either hadn't cared or had grasped it wasn't something it would pay to talk about. And later, after DC, Steve had taken it apart to make sure none of the listening devices had been in _it_ , and then he'd put it back together, exactly the way it was. 

It _really_ didn't mean anything, just by itself. Bucky'd bought it because he needed a pocket-knife, kept it despite the bent blade because it still basically worked and why spend money when money was tight? Everything about it that matters it picked up afterwards. Steve had kept it because for so long it was the single, solitary only thing he had of Bucky's. Now - 

He doesn't actually hear when Bucky opens the bathroom door, as such. Bucky mostly only remembers to make even _closing_ a door make noise when he wants people to pay attention to the fact that it's closed. Instead, Steve hears the bathroom fan get a few notches louder and turns his head to watch the kitten pause (on her side, panting) in her extremely energetic attempts to kill the plastic ball and, after a second, get up and trot down the hall.

Abrikoska isn't _exactly_ clingy. She just has to know where everyone is and more or less what they're doing, so unless she's curled up asleep somewhere (usually on Bucky, but sometimes somewhere else) she'll get up and go find out. And then usually go back to whatever she was doing if something doesn't distract her, until someone moves from one room to the other, or starts doing something that makes noise. 

From the bedroom Bucky says, "That's my foot, you stupid cat. My foot and my pant leg." He says it in Russian, but he mostly talks to the cat in various shades of irritable Russian; maybe the language makes it easier to fake that irritation, or maybe it's because he figures it's harder for Steve to give him a hard time for calling her _koshka_ than _cat_ , while making sure that it still just means the same thing. And it's ridiculous, and it's the kind of game they've always played and if it'd been Steve who got caught by a pet it'd've all just been reversed and knowing that makes something behind Steve's ribs hurt. 

He'd sort of meant to find something to do, something to watch, maybe get an early start on dinner and find something complicated to possibly completely ruin in the name of comfortable cooking competitiveness with Sam, meant to just sort of _be_ until the edge wore off. Until he reminded himself that everything's at least as fine as it can be and - 

And Steve ends up leaving the knife where it is and kicking the cat-toy gently as he passes it, bringing an orange streak scampering back out of the hall to attack it while he walks by.

For a moment - a few seconds, maybe, maybe a few more - Steve ends up standing in the doorway. Bucky's leaning against the bureau, half dressed. His hair's still wet and he has his right arm bent so he can scowl at the stitches near his elbow. He has a bad habit of pulling at stitches, picking at them, until they come out before they should even for how fast he heals; cuts on his right arm are the only ones that doesn't happen with, because he won't tug on them with his left hand. 

Yet. 

Steve realizes that's probably just a _yet_. Except hopefully by the time it isn't _yet_ anymore, the casual, incidental injuries that need stitches won't be so common anymore. Or happen at all. 

This one's a couple days old and Bucky even knew he'd got it before he got home, which is progress. It's the kind of thing most people would have to get a tetanus shot for, hitting the broken edge of some fire-escape somewhere, who knows where. Steve doesn't. Bucky doesn't always shadow Steve on morning runs, not anymore, and most of the time he carries knives Steve knows are for practice, not personal comfort. That somewhere out there scattered over New York are signs of that practice, though probably mostly not where people can see. 

Steve doesn't say anything about it; he's pretty sure pushing himself is such an ingrained habit Bucky doesn't even notice it, except in absence. Except the days he's unwell enough that Steve carefully talks him out of going anywhere, doing anything except staying in and waiting. By the time he does feel better, Bucky's usually antsy, agitated, and will be until he's gone out and come back. 

And it probably doesn't count as pushing. Not to him, not by his standards. Maintenance, barely. 

He's underweight still but he's been sleeping as well as he ever does, so there's no darkness around his eyes from that. He got annoyed at the length of his hair again last week and cut it all off more or less even, just far enough below his chin he can still pull it back out of his face when it's annoying him. He'll ignore it now until it bugs him. 

Steve offered (in a careful, roundabout way) to help him with that once, but the refusal was one of the ones he doesn't push on again, wordless and tense. Bucky always cuts back to the same length, and like most things to do with appearance, Steve doesn't ask. It's too easy for the questions to go wrong and it doesn't matter enough. 

Right now Bucky's wearing jeans that were Steve's, until they'd gone through enough washes that Bucky sort of quietly stole them. Steve's not entirely happy with that, with how things stay like that, but while Bucky never argues new jeans Steve buys for him tend to sit in the wardrobe to get worn only when everything else is dirty, and he's not sure what to do with it. 

Maybe he should ask Natasha. Or Clint. He just doesn't like the silent implication in cast-offs, even if Bucky doesn't care. And Steve's jeans are all a little too big for Bucky anyway, because he's underweight, and just - 

It's a few seconds, maybe a few more, and all of that blinks across his mind and then gets chased out because mostly what screams a glowing trail through his head is that here, across the room, in the door - here is _too far_ , way too far away. 

Bucky looked at Steve the second he stopped in the doorway, scowl going from irritation at the stitches to the shallower lines of a question while he dropped his arm. And there's enough time, just, for Steve to see those lines smooth into surprise before he's crossed the distance and raised one hand to Bucky's jaw, before he's kissing Bucky more or less as hard as he can, and harder than he meant to. Harder than he probably should. Just - 

Just Bucky's skin is warm against his palm and if there was a second of surprise it's gone like water on hot metal: Bucky's left hand holds the back of Steve's neck and Bucky's kissing him back, pushing harder. Just the feeling of muscle and skin, scarred and not, as Steve moves his hands to Bucky's back, it's familiar, grounding, _good_. Just Bucky's right fingers dig into Steve's hip and pull him closer, and it's like the coffee or the knife - not only _themselves_ but what they signify, what they mean. 

It's that they mean Bucky's _here_ , alive and awake and real; that he wants this, Steve, that his answer to Steve being stupid and pushy and demanding is to push back harder; that Steve can touch him, that Bucky _wants_ him to. 

Bucky shifts his weight back against the dresser. He pulls Steve against him, right hand sliding around and flattening against Steve's lower back and then down under the waistband of his jeans. Bucky's only half-dressed, so there's nothing in the way of Steve's free hand running up his chest and back down again, along the ridges and dips of his ribs. And if he can feel them more than he should that's familiar in its own way, too, and for a second Steve's thoughts skitter over years and winters that would have been the same except that then it'd been not having the food to eat instead of not eating the food that's there - 

And Steve's head is a mess, maybe like a flood finally finding its way in and crashing against new walls, or old walls, or _something_ \- the last time like this was months ago and that _stupid_ God-damned story, but this is more, louder. As if what used to be anger tries out desperation and need instead, need or want or maybe there's no difference, and how would he tell? 

And inside the thoughts are simple, the ideas are simple. So simple. Like _I want to fix everything_ and _I want to make it all alright_ ; like _I want you to be happy_ chased by _how do I make you happy?_ right at its heels, almost tripping over. And that so many things shouldn't've happened, and _how do I make that up, how do I take them away?_

Inside the thoughts are short and bright and easy, like _I want to make it so it didn't happen, you never got hurt, they never touched you, Christ -_

And then _I can't_ , because it doesn't work, because he can't: because Steve has no power to wipe things out, to erase them, and all he can do is what he can and sometimes that's so damned little, and all he can do is this. 

Bucky tilts his head back when Steve tangles his fingers in Bucky's hair, kisses the side of his mouth and his jaw and then his throat. His left hand moves to the back of Steve's head when Steve bends to kiss his collar-bone, his left shoulder and the running curve of metal meeting skin. Bucky's quiet, always quiet now, but he's breathing fast and his fingers are cool still, pressing into Steve's scalp as Steve hits his knees, hands resting on Bucky's hips and mouth just open against his stomach. 

He can feel skin and muscle move with Bucky's breath, and he can breathe the smell of clean skin and soap, fabric softener and the bright edge of metal. He rests his forehead against Bucky's hip and strokes his thumb along the other just for a minute, a second; then when Bucky's left hand moves, a little, Steve draws his down and palms Bucky through the cotton of his jeans, looks up to see Bucky close his eyes as he breathes in. 

There's a satisfaction in that. A lot of it. 

Steve kisses open-mouthed along the edge of skin and cloth. He runs one hand over Bucky's stomach, palm and fingers and stroking thumb up to the bottom edge of his ribcage and back again as he sucks up a mark near Bucky's hip and hears his breath catch. Feels the movement of skin over tensed muscles against his mouth. The slight twitch when he bites, and then presses his tongue over the mark. He flicks his tongue over the skin between waist-band and navel and then breathes over wet skin. 

He can feel Bucky watching him, doesn't have to look up to know. He rests his forehead against Bucky's hip again while he undoes Bucky's jeans and pulls them down, underwear with them, and Bucky's hand strokes over his head and down the back of his neck, back up the side. Steve's fingers curve around Bucky's cock as he kisses and bites his way down the line of Bucky's hip until Bucky hisses, " _Christ_ , Steve," and Steve smiles. 

And there's memory, there's always memory, always _past_ and Steve remembers the first time he did this, the first time he slid parted lips along Bucky's cock from tip to root and then dragged his tongue back up the underside before taking it in his mouth. Remembers the way Bucky _looked_ the first time he had Steve on his knees in front of him, the same way he does now, and now just like then _that's_ what makes it hard for Steve to think, to breathe, because what the _Hell_ do you do when someone with eyes like his looks at you like you're the sun. 

Like the sun, like the stars, like everything in a sky he hasn't seen and just looked up at again. It's why Steve closes his eyes, so he doesn't just sit there, drinking in that look, because he could, _God_ he could. Caught like Narcissus at the water but it's not him, so very much not himself he's caught by: he doesn't see himself in Bucky's look, doesn't know why it's there it's just _his_ , now and here, and it could hold him so easily. 

He closes his eyes. 

Knowledge is a kind of memory, new things and old things: there's a scar, oval and livid and from God only knows what because Bucky doesn't remember, just below where jeans sit, even ones that are too big. And Steve knows now that if he traces the edges of it, circles it when he draws his head back until his lips barely touch the tip of Bucky's cock, and then drags the tips of his fingers down towards Bucky's inner thigh when he swallows him again, Bucky shudders and his hand on Steve's shoulder goes tight and he'll curse or say Steve's name in the breaths and gasps that are the only sounds he makes anymore, the only scratches on silence. 

And if he eases the jeans down further he can use his ring and index finger to trace the line of muscle on Bucky's inner thigh and that gets him another reaction, sharp huffing breath that didn't used to be quiet. 

_Wasn't always -, didn't used to -:_ Steve clamps down on those, drags his mind back to every shiver and the stuttered breath he can get from touching _here_ , sucking hard _now_ , from stroking the creases where thighs meet hips with his thumbs over and over to the same rhythm of his mouth, because what-was _doesn't matter_ : what matters is here and now. 

What matters is the way Bucky touches his face. The way he strokes Steve's cheekbones, his jaw, his throat and holds the back of his head, the way he only stops looking at Steve _like that_ when his head falls back for a minute or his eyes close, and in the end the way he almost never waits until he comes to make Steve stop, to pull him up off his knees (by his chin, by his shirt, both hands around his head) to kiss him, to fuck Steve's mouth with his tongue instead and push or pull him back to the bed and down on it. 

And you can get caught by his eyes but Bucky's mouth isn't fair either: when he kisses Steve like this sometimes Steve forgets there's anything else, anything better than Bucky's tongue in his mouth, weight over top of him and hand (either hand, now) stroking the spot on the side of his neck. Except maybe Bucky pulling Steve's head back, to the side and sucking there instead, biting and licking and sucking and holding Steve there until he's moaning. Sometimes. 

Now, for example. A lot, now, at least until Bucky bites the bottom of Steve's ear instead and murmurs, "Someday I'm gonna have the patience to see if I can get you off just doing that, you know?" 

And the idea is amazing but the pause - it lets Steve notice he's still mostly in his shirt and jeans and hard enough to ache; he turns his head towards Bucky, bites at Bucky's lower lip and says, "Not now, Jesus," voice breathless enough for him to hear it himself, and, "God, please, Bucky I _need_ you." 

For a second he wonders if that was wrong, because Bucky stills. Just for a second, his breath still fast and warm against Steve's mouth until Bucky pushes himself up on his right elbow. And Steve would still wonder if it'd been wrong, the wrong thing to say, except that Bucky's eyes are darker, blue irises a thinner circle and for a second Steve thinks the way he's watching Steve's face is the way he does when he's trying to figure out if Steve's lying. 

Bucky traces Steve's lower lip with two fingers of his left hand and Steve turns to catch them in his mouth, taste metal and watch Bucky's lips part.  
He catches Bucky's left hand, kisses the inside of his wrist and echoes himself with, "Just, Bucky - right now I need _you_ , please - " 

Bucky stops him when he hooks his hand behind Steve's neck and pulls him to sit up, says, "Shut up and get your shirt off, Steve," and mostly pulls it up over Steve's head himself before pushing Steve back down on his back. Steve manages to think ahead just enough, he thinks, to save this pair of jeans from losing its button by getting his jeans open for Bucky to pull down so Steve can kick them the rest of the way off. 

He groans when Bucky straddles his hips and leans down to suck a mark onto the hollow of his throat, gasps _Christ_ when Bucky shifts his weight onto his left hand and reaches between them with his right, fingers closing around both their cocks and stroking. For a minute his eyes are intent on Steve's face, looking for Steve doesn't know what, until he leans down again and bites at Steve's other ear, sucks over the same spot on that side to make Steve's hips jerk up at the sudden white spark that works its way down his spine. Bucky touches his mouth to Steve's, just for a second, and Steve thinks he can see the shadow of a smirk. 

Steve's right palm draws a path from Bucky's thigh to his hip; with his left he touches Bucky's face, his shoulder, slides fingers and palm over Bucky's upper right arm in haphazard circles until Bucky bends to kiss him again, fast and hard while he pulls his right hand from between them and reaches for the lube in the night-stand drawer instead. 

And there has to be a better word than beautiful, Steve thinks, while he looks up at Bucky over him, watches Bucky open himself, eyes half-closed and skin starting to bead with sweat. Has to be one for what it _means_ , what it stands in for, when it just means _looking at you leaves me awestruck and breathless_ and maybe _I love you_ ; when it just means you want to praise someone every way you can and even if it's true itself you just fall back on _beautiful_ because that's all you have. He thinks it like you have thoughts in a fever, distant and far off and overtop of the here and the now that's all filled (here, and now) with _Jesus, Christ, God you're beautiful_. 

Steve bites his lip at Bucky's now-slick hand on his cock; when Bucky eases down onto him in one slow, hot slide Steve's back arches and his voice breaks on Bucky's name, cracking at the end; his grip on Bucky's thigh with one hand might be too tight, and his other opens and closes on air as he catches his breath, until his fingers find the blankets and twist in them, clutching. 

Bucky leans down, weight on his left hand again, just over Steve's shoulder. His tongue against the corner of Steve's jaw is a sudden point of heat and wet and then he says, "You've always _had_ me, Steve," against Steve's ear at the same time that he rolls his hips and the only answer Steve can manage is a moan. 

And sometimes Steve thinks this can't actually be real, that Bucky still wants him, wants _this_ \- wants Steve against him, inside him, Steve's hands stroking his back, his arms, his chest, his hips, any part of him Steve can touch, _everywhere_. To hold Steve's jaw and kiss him, rhythm of the kiss matching the rocking of his hips fast and slow until Steve has to break it to gasp for breath and Bucky looks down at him the same way as before and this time Steve drowns in it for a while. 

Bucky traces Steve's mouth with his right thumb, and Steve closes his eyes and rocks up into him, matching, finding a way to match how he moves; his hands rest against Bucky's back, one above the other, the fingers of the topmost stroking down the line where the skin on Bucky's left shoulder meets the metal, the transition from flesh and bone to something else that makes Bucky hiss and rest his head against Steve's shoulder, right hand reaching between them to stroke himself to the rhythm they find. 

Steve shifts to cover Bucky's hand with his, his other hand sliding up to thread fingers through Bucky's hair, cup the back of his head. He knows the noises he's making, he can hear them, he can _feel_ them rattle in his chest and his throat. 

When Bucky comes it pushes Steve over with him, can't _not_ , Bucky's name falling apart into an incoherent cry in his mouth, arm around Bucky's waist and back pulling him tight and close while Bucky's breath is fast and harsh and almost all that Steve can hear, until it's over. Until the gasp after release that makes his head spin almost as much as the thing itself, that drops him panting back into the world and everything else. 

He doesn't let go, doesn't open his arms, doesn't _want_ to; when Bucky relaxes it's on Steve, against him: head on his shoulder, arm against his side, chest against his, legs still against his waist. For a moment, at least. For the moment everything releases and Steve can _feel_ that, through Bucky, for just that heartbeat _feel_ all the tension go. The only place it does, the only time it does - all of it, at least. Moments, seconds, heartbeats of give, of his muscles softening their grip on his bones, loose-limbed pause. 

Bucky breathes, _Christ, Steve_ which stands in for everything and Steve just - 

For a minute, just for now, he doesn't let go. 

Until Bucky's pushing himself up, and Steve does, because he'd never do anything else; Bucky rolls off of him, onto his side and then onto his back. He takes Steve's wrist and tugs and says, "C'mere," and pulls Steve over to him until Steve's lying with his head resting on Bucky's chest, body covering Bucky's and Bucky's right hand running up and down his back. 

And sometimes in moments like this Steve's mind throws him stupid things to say, things he feels but sound like an idiot's words, like _do you understand how you existing makes me happy? do you get that?_ and other stuff like it. They get as far as his throat and then shut down, because even if he had to learn to think about what he did later, even as a kid he learned not to _say_ the stupid things that came into his head. He rests where he is, instead, and listens to Bucky's heartbeat gradually slow as sweat dries on their skin and Bucky touches him the way he does only at times like this, absent and idle, like he's not thinking about it. 

Eventually, right fingers still tracing Steve's spine from between the top of his shoulder-blades to the nape of his neck, Bucky says, "You gonna tell me what upset you?" his voice conversational and quiet. 

Steve stops himself from making a face and, more than a little reluctantly, pushes himself up so he can lean on his arm and look at Bucky's face. "How did I know you were gonna ask that?" he says, a little rhetorically, maybe a little like he's dodging the question. 

The look it gets him from Bucky is gently amused, but also knowing as Hell. "Because you're still too-worried and over-careful," he drawls in reply, "right up until something hits the right crack in your head and makes you forget to be, for a while." And the look stays, the one that says _you only get secrets from other people_ and is pretty much right. It also says _you're a terrible liar_ , and that's always true - but here, more than anywhere else. Steve sighs, drops his eyes for a second. 

"Sorry," he says, means it. Even gets part of the way into composing some kind of further apology, or explanation, admission that whatever he does he can't quite make himself _not_ worry, not think that the consequences of overstepping are worse than the - 

Except Bucky shifts himself a bit to get his arm around and then flicks Steve hard on the forehead with his right finger. 

"Ow," Steve protests, jerking his head back and ducking away, a little. Scowling, maybe. 

"Don't change the subject," Bucky replies, and this time Steve can't stop himself from making a face. 

"I wasn't trying to," he protests, and that's actually true. He wasn't. It just sort of - 

"So don't do it anyway," Bucky counters, dragging his mind back to what's in front of him, and Steve sighs. Thinks about it for a minute and finds it hard to keep the thoughts squarely in his mind, finds memory skipping around the edges, to Bruce's look of discomfort or the image of handing him back the mini-tablet or, more or less, anything else. 

Bucky just waits, his expression pointedly patient. And in the end Steve figures he more or less has to admit aloud, "Honestly I'm not entirely sure telling you's a good idea," and as Bucky's eyebrows lift a little he elaborates, "it's not - there's nothing - it's not that important?" 

When Bucky's expression turns outright sceptical Steve sighs again and says, "It's not. Bruce's just still working through some of the old SHIELD stuff and found something he felt he had to share, that's all." 

Steve expects Bucky to push and is already trying to think of ways to deflect, because he's _not_ sure that telling Bucky is a good idea - but that's not what happens. Instead, his best friend glances up towards the ceiling for a little while, frowning just a little bit. Like he's thinking. One finger of his left hand taps against his own collar-bone and Steve watches him, trying to read what expression he's got, until Bucky takes a breath, sighs on the exhale and says, "Banner found pictures of that son of a bitch from his twenties, didn't he." 

Bucky almost never says Pierce's name, either of them. Identification is in the inflection of a word, or a few: _him_ or _the bastard_ or _that son of a bitch_. Steve can read them now, never has a doubt who he means. 

When Steve stares at him, Bucky looks faintly, sourly amused. "Not that hard, Steve," he says, the sourness in his voice. "Something Banner could find in old SHIELD files that isn't important now but he'd still think he had to tell you, that'd upset the fuck out of you, and like that?" He shrugs minutely with his right shoulder. "Pretty narrow field. The bastard was nobody special to the rest of the world until he hit hi fucking, what - forties? some fucking thing - that'd be just about the only place there would be any fucking pictures for you to compare." 

Bucky's eyes are on the ceiling, at least for a second. Steve swallows because his throat's gone tight, so he can say, "But you - " 

Bucky's half-smile is twisted-up-wry again and he says, "I do kinda live in my own fucking head, Steve. Most of the time anyway. Sometimes I even manage to figure out some of the fucking mess. Yeah. I fucking figured that out. Few fucking weeks ago." 

"You didn't say," Steve says. He's careful not to make it an accusation; Bucky snorts a little derisively. 

"Okay, when you figure out how I'd've fucking brought that up in conversation, you let me know okay?" he retorts, and Steve feels his own mouth quirk up, because he has a point. "Besides," Bucky goes on, "didn't change anything, didn't fuck with me, really and - " he touches the side of Steve's face and says, "I knew you'd get stuck on the wrong part, like you totally fucking are, and I didn't want to talk about it that much." He shrugs with his right shoulder. "Still don't, but guess I fucking have to. And if you even think of fucking saying I don't - "

"What wrong part?" Steve asks, instead, and Bucky shakes his head, looks up again. 

"You know exactly which fucking wrong part," he replies levelly, and so Steve takes the _doesn't fuck with me_ with a bit of salt, because if Bucky's talking around it - "The part," Bucky goes on, looking at him again, interrupting his thoughts, "where you get to use it to beat yourself up, like it's your fucking fault, like you're fucking responsible for shit you didn't control and couldn't control. Like," he repeats, "you totally fucking are. And you'd never," he adds, cutting off Steve's attempt to ask _and how is that the wrong part?_ , "ever fucking think past that." 

It's probably messed up that, over the twisting upset and concern, the edge of fondness to how Bucky shakes his head a little, taking in Steve's blank look, is . . .comforting. As is the way he reaches over to ruffle Steve's hair. Probably messed up. But it is anyway. Probably because Steve feels more than a little lost, like he doesn't know which way is the right way right now. So anything familiar is a comfort. 

"Steve," Bucky says, the amusement tired-out and sore, "they had seven fucking decades to work on me - either something would've fucking broken or they'd've just fucking shot me, and either way I would _not_ just be able to sit and be a fucking mess in your home. I mean, Jesus," he says, smile totally humourless, "I'd ask you if you didn't think it was a little fucking weird not you or anybody ever had to fucking talk me out of going back to any of the bastards whose boots I licked for so many fucking years - and yeah," he says, scrubbing his right hand over his face for a second, "I looked, some of them are fucking unaccounted for still - look, you never had to. I'd ask you," he repeats, hand dropping to lightly cover his throat, "but I already know you never thought about it because you don't think that way." 

He prods Steve gently in the forehead, and Steve reaches up to catch his hand, put it between his own. " _I_ thought about it," Bucky says. " _I_ wondered why the fuck the only reason I wanted to be anywhere else was you scared the shit out of me and so did fucking staying alive. I wondered why the fuck even when I was out of my fucking head and didn't remember a single God-damn thing the only thing I was worried about was upsetting _you_ \- no, shut up," he says, and pulls his hands out of Steve's to put his fingers on Steve's mouth, stop him from saying . . . Steve's not even sure, but knows he was going to say something, protest somehow because he still can't . . . quite handle the wrongness of that. 

He hates it. He does. Maybe not more than anything else, but _like_ nothing else. Like the obscenity is is. 

Bucky's mouth curves a little again and he says, "See, this is why I didn't say anything," and this time he traces the space from Steve's forehead down between his eyebrows. "Stop getting stuck on the wrong parts, Steve - the _point_ is I should've been ripping myself apart over that and I wasn't. I should've wanted to be here and thought I had to crawl back there. I didn't. Because yeah, through damn _fucking luck_ when they fucking wiped my life out that _son of a bitch_ happened to be a good enough fake _by accident_ that he found a way in and he used it, but - " 

He stops. His mouth closes for a minute, jaw tight, and Steve waits. And then he has to look down again, away from the gaze that's . . . more, even, than it was before. Because now it's not lust it's _knowing_ and it's sad and Steve doesn't know how to deal with it. 

Bucky combs fingers through the line of Steve's hair instead, says, "What's a fucking counterfeit when you can have the real thing?" 

Steve's chest hurts and his throat hurts; he catches Bucky's hand again and kisses it, knows his face is knotted up in a frown he can't help. He stays quiet because he can't figure out what to _say_ , stuck in another one of those places where his head says _this is where we give up on words and punch people_ except his life isn't a back-alley anymore, and it's not even a war, it's something else and it needs more fucking thought than that. And it's hard. 

"Actually," Bucky says, conversationally, breaking into Steve's stalled thoughts after a heartbeat or two, "it's kind of fucking hilarious." 

When Steve looks up, frowning on purpose now, because he does not trust Bucky's sense of humour at moments like this, Bucky says, "Same reason he got to take for granted that he owned me is the reason everything fucking fell apart for him." 

Steve's not actually sure what he wants to do, if he wants to curse or break something or kiss Bucky till they both can't breathe again or . . . _what_ , but in the still place torn up between, he says, "That's not even funny, Buck." 

"Yeah, it is," Bucky says, "and you know it." 

"No, I know your sense of humour is really damned warped," Steve disagrees, and Bucky snorts disbelievingly at him. 

"No, you know it's hilarious but you're horrified you think it's funny," Bucky tells him, "and it's also fucking true." 

Then he catches Steve by the side of his neck, thumb under Steve's chin, and pulls him up and Bucky's kissing _him_ until they both can't breathe. Until he rolls them both over, puts Steve on his back and catches Steve's hands to pin them to the bed with his own, fingers interlaced. Until he bites Steve's bottom lip _hard_ and does the same to the point of his jaw. 

"And if you ever," he breathes, right by Steve's ear, " _ever_ fucking apologize to me over this I swear to God I will actually beat the shit out of you and I _won't_ kiss it better. I fucking _swear to God_ , Steve." 

Bucky rests his forehead against Steve's temple as Steve works his right hand loose and cradles Bucky's head with it, turns his face towards him. "Because if I only get one God-damn thing that's easy," Bucky says, "and then you wander around feeling _fucking guilty_ about it - " 

"Shut up," Steve says. He kisses the side of Bucky's mouth, the curve of his jaw, tilts his head a little so he can just _kiss_ Bucky again and feel Bucky's weight settle on top of him, ribs to hips and between his legs, feel the warm knot in his gut. And for a minute he thinks maybe that's it, that Bucky'll let it go in favour of sex or sleep or anything else. 

Instead, after a second Bucky pulls back again and says, "Steve. Look at me." And his voice is quieter, closer to no inflection. Not there yet. But closer. And even after saying it, when Steve meets his gaze there's a second when Bucky looks down, and away, before he can look back and keep his gaze steady, keep eye-contact. 

"I was lost, and fucked up, and out of my fucking head," Bucky says, low, each word sharp like it costs him, "I didn't know who or what I fucking was, I didn't know who the fuck _you_ were and I was _still looking_ for you. And they - _he_ ," and Steve can see the correction cost him, in the breath Bucky has to take, "used that, and it fucking burned them, and it's the only _fucking_ thing that would. So don't you fucking - " 

Bucky stops and looks away again, doesn't actually look back when he says, "Don't, Steve. It's not something for you to feel fucking guilty for. So don't. Please. Just - don't." 

And Steve almost misses it. 

Almost. 

Gets as far as saying, "Bucky - " and it starts out as the first word of _Bucky, I can't not,_ until he stops. Pulls himself short. Until some gut impulse yanks him back, hard, and for a minute he doesn't know why and he isn't sure why the look on Bucky's face as he waits is the closed off one, either. The one that comes when Bucky doesn't know how something's going to end, where he doesn't show anything because it doesn't _matter_ what he thinks, and Steve doesn't know why. 

It takes a minute. Because it's wrapped up in old rags of normal, the way they used to argue, the tones they _still_ use to argue - sharp edged and full of threats they don't mean, where the only words they know how to throw at each other are things like _shut up_ or insults that don't mean what they say, where every request or uncertainty is wrapped up in a demand or an order, because asking - 

Steve's brain skips on _asking_. Skips over the idea again and again, like a record hitting a scratch, bouncing back over and over and what he actually says is, "Okay," and there's not as much time in the pause as it feels like. And he's not even sure he can do it, doesn't know if it's possible for him to manage what he's promising, but it doesn't _matter_. 

Because earlier he thought about coffee and missing it and the things it meant that weren't about itself, and this is the first thing Bucky's actually _asked for_ since he came home, the very first damn thing. So it doesn't matter if it's possible or not, because Steve'll do it anyway, somehow. 

So Steve runs his hands up Bucky's forearms, feels the stitches on the right scrape under his palm and says, "Okay," and waits a beat for the tension to ease. To watch Bucky let that breath out and let expression come back to his face. Just a beat. 

Then he says, "You found me," and it's like an offer, a way back away from the sharp edge where they just ended up, and Bucky takes it; the muscles of Bucky's right arm stop feeling like twisted cables about the same time Bucky smiles slightly and looks back at him. 

"Yeah, well," he says. "Stealth has never been your strong suit." 

"I have other talents," Steve says and when Bucky laughs, softly, shaking his head, he adds, "plus, I kinda like hitting things, and you don't get to hit as many things when you're stealthy. Also it's kind of impossible to have explosions and stealth at the same time." 

Bucky catches his ear with his right hand and pulls on it, and Steve laughs. "You," Bucky says, "are a smart-mouthed oversized punk." 

"Yeah," Steve says, drawing out the syllable as he runs his palm up Bucky's left arm to rest on his shoulder, "only for you." 

As invitations go, it's pretty blatant and Bucky takes it: dips his head to kiss Steve again, tongue licking into Steve's mouth and Steve gives himself up into that, Bucky's hips rocking against his in echo of the rhythm. Kissing, Steve thinks, is seriously underrated. He smoothes one hand down the side of Bucky's back, presses his palm in circles just above his tailbone. Feels a certain amount of satisfaction when Bucky moves into the touch. 

Bucky breaks the kiss to suck hard at the side of Steve's throat, and Steve works the fingers of his free hand into Bucky's hair, cradling his head and stroking wider circles on Bucky's back with his other. And his head is light and warm and he murmurs, "God I love touching you," without thinking. 

Then the world whites out for a second at the pressure of Bucky's teeth and a tiny part of Steve's mind files _that_ away, too, while he clutches at Bucky's shoulder and tries to keep his hand from closing in Bucky's hair. Bucky doesn't let up as he shifts himself to one side, lips and tongue still working over the marks his teeth _have_ to have left while his left hand rakes lightly down Steve's chest, across his stomach and trails finger-tips up the length of his rapidly hardening cock. Steve squirms, head tilting back and hips jerking up, and can't help making a small noise of protest when Bucky lets him go and moves a little more to Steve's left, rolling off him. 

Bucky's tongue traces the shell of Steve's ear and he murmurs, "Shift over," pushing Steve's shoulder up to slide half under him, right arm sliding under Steve's chest to pull him back against Bucky's, before Bucky pulls it free and works the arm under Steve's shoulder and neck instead, to catch Steve's jaw and guide his head back so Bucky can kiss him. 

"Want you," Bucky murmurs, pressing his mouth to Steve's temple and _Jesus Christ_ that's the first time he's ever _said_ that, said it aloud with words instead of touch, action. The fingers of his left hand trace over Steve's hip around to the curve of his ass, then the underside and inside of his thigh as Steve spreads his legs in response. "Always, want to feel you, hear you, want - " 

Steve turns his head back again to touch open mouth to the corner of Bucky's and say, "Yours. Always, all of me - Jesus, _Bucky_ ," because he has to, because in the first time Bucky's ever said those words Steve can still hear . . . fear, hesitation, apprehension and it's _wrong_ and he needs it gone, gone _now_. Curves his arm back to touch the side of Bucky's face and echoes, "Always - always want all of you, all of me is yours. Never going to change." 

And Steve thinks for a minute Bucky has a hard time breathing; his left hand comes up to curl carefully enough around Steve's hand you'd think it was made of eggshells as he watches Steve's face for a second, his right hand tracing unconscious patterns the other side of Steve's throat. Then he breathes, "Fuck, Steve," and kisses Steve hard and long. 

Steve pushes back against him, manages in spite of the kiss to keep together just enough brain-cells to manage, "That's an _amazing_ damn idea," and to reap the laugh in response, edge only barely ragged, when Bucky buries his face in Steve's neck. Then Bucky's reaching away for a second, presumably to wherever he left the lube. 

Bucky hooks his left arm under Steve's leg, guiding it back; at the feeling of his fingers, just cooler than skin and slick as they circle Steve's hole, stroke and just barely press because Bucky is a _God-damn tease_ , Steve's head falls back and he groans, and then shudders as Bucky's right hand curves gently around his throat, fingers curving and stroking over _that_ too. "Bucky," he gets out, though whether it's protest or encouragement Steve has no fucking idea. Bucky's face is still against the curve of Steve's neck, his breath teasing over skin; at the sound of his name he says _shhhh_ and then proves he doesn't mean it by pressing a wet, open-mouthed kiss to the spot on Steve's neck and guaranteeing Steve make more noise. 

Steve's right hand manages to find a pillow-case to twist his fingers into; he reaches back blindly with his left, needing, _needing_ to touch skin, to hold onto Bucky's waist or thigh as Bucky slides two fingers in and starts to work him open. And that's the world, all of it, all of it that matters - Bucky's breath in Steve's ear, fast and hot, Bucky's right fingertips softly resting on his throat, his body pressed against Steve's back from shoulder to thigh, his skin hot under Steve's clutching hand, his left fingers sliding into Steve further and deeper, curling inside him and making Steve want to writhe. 

He manages, eventually, barely, to line up the words, "Bucky, _please_ "; feels Bucky's breath hitch against his ear and then Bucky's sliding his fingers out and if he meant to be slow and careful sliding his slicked cock _in_ Steve kind of ruins that by pushing back hard enough to make himself gasp and if there's a second's twinge of discomfort he doesn't _care_. 

"Want you," he says, pants, as Bucky's breath catches again, "want _all_ of you, Jesus Christ, Bucky, _fuck_ me, stop teasing." 

Steve hears Bucky hiss, and then he's pushing Steve over onto his belly, covering him, dragging Steve's left knee up under him and catching Steve's right hand with his, pinning it to the bed. When he start to move Steve groans and rests his head on his own left arm and rocks with each thrust. 

And Bucky _knows_ him, so well, too well, knows how to move to _wreck_ him, to work him to the point that all he has to do is let Steve's hand go so he can reach under him and barely _touch_ him before Steve's coming hard and Bucky doesn't stop - kisses the back of Steve's neck, his shoulders, the top of his spine, doesn't stop while Steve rides that, still shuddering in the best way. Doesn't stop. 

Until he does, is, until Bucky's pulling back and out and Steve makes a faint noise of protest until Bucky's pulling gently at his hip and saying, breathless, "On your back, Steve, I want to see you - " and for once _Steve_ isn't sure what language that was and doesn't care. 

He rolls over onto his back and pulls Bucky to him, kissing him hard and moaning against his mouth as Bucky pushes back in, wrapping his legs tight around Bucky's waist. Bucky breathes, _oh God, Steve_ and rests his face against Steve's neck, Steve cradling the back of his head and stroking his shoulder as they find the right way to move again. And Steve thinks _want me, take me, have me_ and even _Christ, I love you_ , but they don't get as far as his voice and they don't need to: he traces them out on skin, where his hands touch and hold, where he raises his head to kiss Bucky's throat and mark _him_ , write the meaning with his mouth and his fingertips. 

And he knows how the read the way Bucky breathes, the way he looks and touches: when Bucky pushes himself up on his left arm to watch Steve's face, Steve touches his, traces the line of his cheek and his jaw and Bucky's eyes close. He takes Steve's hand and kisses palm, curved knuckles, sucks the tips of Steve's fingers into his mouth; with his other hand Steve pulls him down and does say, "Want you. Want you with me, next to me, _always_ ," and then his head falls back and he moans because that gets him what he was looking for and Bucky fucks into him _hard_ as he comes. 

Then Bucky's right hand is between them, jerking Steve off fast and sure and Steve arches his back with an inarticulate noise when he comes again and then collapses back onto the bed, panting and breathless. 

And it's the edge of thoughtless instinct, when Bucky pulls away and moves to lie down that Steve turns a little and catches him to pull him close instead, one arm curving around Bucky's waist and the other resting on the back of his neck, Steve's top leg tangling up with Bucky's. And there might be a second's hesitation, tension, but it's over so quick it's gone before Steve can really notice it, and Bucky's relaxing against him, everything releasing again, cheek pressed against Steve's shoulder. And Steve doesn't know what stupid part of Bucky thought he should move away now and he doesn't care, he just knows who put it there and it can go to Hell. 

He shifts carefully back onto his back, taking Bucky with him, so that gravity's helping him hold on instead of hindering. Strokes Bucky's hair and his upper back, shoulders and neck. Some part of him thinks, inanely - _there. There, let me do that, let me give you that,_ isn't sure what he means except he means whatever leads to this, here, the place where Bucky can let go and stop being braced for anything, everything. Just be here and let go. 

Steve doesn't think of himself as possessive, or jealous - not really. But this is his, and mostly it's his because the rest of the world long ago proved it didn't fucking deserve it, _he_ almost doesn't, so this, Bucky resting relaxed and unguarded, this is Steve's. And it's worth the God-damn world. 

And if the extra blanket were in reach they could probably stay here a while in spite of anything else, but it's not, and eventually Bucky especially's going to get cold. So Steve kisses the top of Bucky's head after a few minutes and says, "We should shower. Or bath. Or something." 

Bucky makes a faintly disapproving noise, and Steve feels himself half-smile. "C'mon," he says. "You're gonna be sorry when you get cold. And I'll bribe you," he adds." 

"With what, exactly?" Bucky says, but he's starting to move, enough that Steve can gently flick him in the forehead. 

"Whatever you want," he replies, solemnly, and then grins at the great show of reluctance Bucky makes getting up. 

 

 _so are you fine_ , Natasha's text says later, quite a bit later, _or are you still having an emotional meltdown about things you can't control?_

Steve orders delivery first and then texts back, _you know, you're mean sometimes._

 _steve,_ Natasha replies, _when I'm nice to you about this stuff, you ignore me :)_ And Steve has to admit that she has a point. 

_fine,_ he says. _emotional meltdown over_. Which might be a stretch, a bit of one, but at least he's made a decision about it, and that's the important part. 

_good :)_ Natasha sends back, and nothing more, and Steve frowns a little at the phone. Bucky glances over from making coffee and says, "What?"

"Nothing," Steve says, "just Natasha being . . . Natasha." He texts, _what no skeptical looks?_

"This may come as a surprise, Steve," Bucky says seriously, "but she's probably gonna keep doing that. I think it comes naturally." He looks innocent when Steve shoots him a mock glare. 

"You should just make coffee," he says, as Natasha texts back, _nope. I can actually tell when you're fibbing even on text Steve_. Steve ducks Bucky's gesture at messing his hair up. 

_oh yeah?_ he texts. _how?_

_now I'm really not likely to tell you that am i_ , is Natasha's reply. _you only ever fib to me about stuff I think it's important to know the truth on. :P go eat something. it's dinnertime._ Which is the kind of text that usually means she's going to ignore any further attempts to get her to talk about it. Steve rolls his eyes, turns off his phone and puts it in his pocket. 

Behind him Abrikoska jumps up on the counter again. He and Bucky both turn to watch as she sniffs around the salt and pepper grinders, and then around the little spice-rack, and then at the stove, and then at the edge of the counter. And then sits down. And mews, plaintively. 

Bucky shakes his head, reaches over and puts her on his left shoulder. "You know," Steve says, "we should probably be discouraging her from being on the kitchen counters anyway?" 

"Good luck with that," Bucky replies, leaning against the counter and waiting for his coffee to boil. But when Steve walks past him, Bucky catches his arm and pulls him back, rests his right hand on the back of Steve's neck, pulling Steve's forehead to rest on his. He doesn't say anything, and neither does Steve. 

They don't move until the coffee starts to boil.


End file.
